Electronic commerce

3. Alibaba Group Holding Limited

• 3. Alibaba Group Holding Limited
• Alibaba Group operates several businesses, with the major ones being:
• Taobao
• Alibaba Cloud
• TMall
• AliExpress
• Lazada
• Alibaba.com
• Youku
• DingTalk
• Cainiao Network
• These subsidiaries span a range of services, from logistics networks and self-operated retail chains to ecommerce platforms and cloud services. 
• Businesses like Alibaba.com, AliExpress, and TMall have enabled the Alibaba Group to penetrate the global market. AliExpress, for example, is a global retail marketplace that has grown in popularity thanks to the dropshipping model. It enables consumers to purchase products directly from their manufacturers and distributors based in China. Alibaba.com, a wholesale marketplace, bridges the gap between Chinese and overseas suppliers and international wholesale buyers. In 2021, Alibaba.com served more than 34 million buyers from 190 countries.
• According to the Alibaba Group’s press release for its September Quarter 2021 Results, the company’s revenue was at USD 31,147 million, indicating a 29% year-over-year increase. Furthermore, by the end of September 2021, the Alibaba Ecosystem reached approximately 1.24 billion consumers worldwide—a 62 million increase from June 2021 figures. 
• From the 1.24 billion consumers, 953 million are in China and 285 million are overseas. These numbers represent a quarterly net increase of 41 million and 20 million, respectively, when it comes to the Alibaba Group’s annual active consumers.
• 4. Rakuten
• Rakuten Ichiba is Japan’s largest ecommerce marketplace. 
• It has more than 100 million shoppers and is frequented by 87% of the country’s population. That’s 111.4 million members when you consider Japan’s population of approximately 126 million individuals (2020). In 2021, Rakuten had an average of 544.3 million visits per month. 
• Rakuten also commanded 26.8% of the market share in 2019. In the same year, it generated USD 37 billion in domestic ecommerce gross merchandise value. In Japan, Rakuten Ichiba is recognized as the most trusted ecommerce marketplace, even outperforming the global ecommerce juggernaut Amazon. Moreover, it holds more than 25% of Japan’s online B2C market and more than 30% in segments like apparel, food, and household.
• Aside from ecommerce, the company operates several diverse services, which include banking, credit cards, digital content, and FinTech.